


come stop your crying, it'll be alright

by sinceraly



Category: Tales of Symphonia
Genre: Discussions of abandonment, Father-Son Relationship, Gen, He Gets a Hug, Hurt/Comfort, Lloyd Irving needs a hug, Post-Canon, kratos be a good dad challenge, pre-DotNW
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-23
Updated: 2019-04-23
Packaged: 2020-01-25 13:45:25
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,642
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18575683
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sinceraly/pseuds/sinceraly
Summary: After Kratos leaves Aselia on Derris-Kharlan, Lloyd is left to grieve a father he never got to know. Dirk offers his son support and reassurance, proud of the boy he's raised.





	come stop your crying, it'll be alright

To see his son so upset, so visibly shaken up by the things he's been forced to go through, will never not break Dirk's heart.

Lloyd is a force of nature, pacing the floor of his bedroom with a pained determination that threatens to burn a pattern in the wood below him. He's hanging clothes and reorganizing tools and spraying his plants with way too much water, face stubbornly looking away from the doorway, from where he knows Dirk stands against the frame, arms crossed, watching him. Lloyd's only gotten in these kind of bad moods a few times in the years Dirk has raised him, where he's so upset that he resorts to cleaning to distract him, too stuck in thoughts to escape them with his crafts.

“Lloyd,” Dirk calls, finally opening his mouth, having had enough of watching his son move and move and move with no words. Lloyd pauses, but he refuses to look at the dwarf, just grips tight a scarf he holds in his hands. “Look at me, son,” Dirk tries again, keeping his voice patient, calm. For all the fury that simmers below his practiced control, directed at the birth father who dared leave behind the best son anyone could ask for, Dirk is not the one who needs to express himself at the moment.

Lloyd turns, wipes at his eyes hastily. “Yeah? What do you need, dad?”

Dirk clicks his tongue. It hurts, seeing Lloyd like this, seeing him shove on a brave face as though Dirk shouldn't be bothered with his own son's worries, like a proper, true father would be. Like Lloyd isn't just _seventeen_ and a human being who's absolutely in the right to cry about his birth father _abandoning_ him. The anger cracks at Dirk's composure a little bit, his eyebrows knitting together in some sort of mostly concealed furiousness. Dirk would say that nobody deserved this, but especially not Lloyd, who's gone above and beyond to prove himself to a man who left out of his own cowardice anyways. Dirk would stand on a rooftop and declare his own pride for his son, but Kratos would rather leave him to suffer the consequences of his strenuous journey alone.

“ _I_ don't need anything, Lloyd,” Dirk answers, blinking back some of his irritation, focusing on making his concern obvious. “I'm worried about you, son.”

Lloyd puts on a smile. It's shaky at best, transparent at worst. “I'm alright, dad. It's just - he wanted to leave! It's fine. He can do that. I - I don't know him that well, anyways, and he - I have you, y'know?” His voice pitches up as he rambles, turning his back again and shoving the scarf into a drawer. Nothing left in Lloyd's hands, he busies himself with organizing his sketch pencils by lead type. The urgency with which Lloyd keeps moving around works up pressing worry, shoving it past the anger until Dirk's pressing his fingertips hard into his arms, attempting to keep his expression mostly composed. “I have you. I don't need him! I'm - I'm almost an adult, anyways. It's fine, it's -”

Dirk needs to stop Lloyd before he digs a hole deeper into his mind, fully aware of what happens when Lloyd lets his hyperactive mind take advantage of his insecurities. Many days Dirk has spent holding Lloyd tight, confirming his pride and his joy in having him for a son. Many days Dirk has spent caring for two other children - Colette and Genis - as they cared for his own. He knows Lloyd Irving. He knows how Lloyd works, how even as his son hides away from him and tries _so hard_ to not be a burden, which is just ridiculous, Lloyd needs to know he's appreciated.

“Lloyd.”

“ - I just wish he, I dunno. I wish he would have stayed for a little longer? Hah,” Lloyd chuckles, but it's high and anxious, fitting his unsure gaze the flits across the room, “but that's asking for a lot, I - I was asking for a lot -”

“Lloyd.”

“And who knows? Maybe he'll find happiness out there, maybe he'll find a new planet and - and maybe he'll have a different kid, and decide that he's finally ready to be there for them, right? And that's - that's good, right?”

“ _Lloyd.”_

“It's fine, really! I - I'll grow up, and I'll get married, and I'll take over the shop and I'll make my own life and he won't - he won't be a part of it, but it's fine. Because he'll be happy too, and he deserves that -”

“ _Lloyd!”_

Lloyd startles, jumping up a solid few inches in the air, and Dirk feels guilt pang in his chest. He hates having to raise his voice, but when Lloyd gets like this, it's do or die. He needed to get his attention. “Lloyd, son, it's alright to be angry. It's alright to be sad.”

Those are the magic words, it seems, because it's right after he lets them flow off his tongue that he hears a loud sniffle and pushes himself off the doorframe, walking towards Lloyd in the center of his room. “C'mere.”

Lloyd turns to him, and Dirk holds his arms out as his son begins to cry earnestly, face distorting in anguish as a sob rips itself from his throat. It's a stumble, and then Lloyd is throwing himself into Dirk's arms, kneeling on the floor, crying into his shoulder. Dirk holds him tight as he weeps, shushing and cooing at him, allowing Lloyd the time to _grieve._ Running a hand through the hairs on the back of Lloyd's head, trying to help him keep grounded, and letting him know he's not alone is all he can really do, but given that Lloyd stays there for several minutes, just finally letting go of the storm of emotions he had been keeping bottled up, Dirk guesses it's efficient.

The minutes pass and Lloyd's sobs slowly cease in their racking through of his body, but he's still shaking, hiccuping. Dirk keeps holding him tight, pats him on the back a few times, let's him know he's here, but doesn't say anything.

Dirk doesn't know what to say, truly. This situation is crazy, the behavior so unrelentingly unneeded from an adult Kratos’ age. But he understands Lloyd's plight - to have a parent long dead be alive, betray you, and then leave after a few months of being united - it seems incredibly cruel of fate to make anyone go through that, let alone the one who saved both worlds. But, for all that Dirk wishes he could say the opposite, it's not like life was particularly kind to Lloyd.

Dirk hears a mumble, but doesn't catch it all, muffled as it is from Lloyd's face being in his shoulder.

“Hm? What did you say?”

Lloyd lifts his head, eyes still wet and raw. “W… why didn't he want me, dad?”

That one question breaks Dirk's heart all over again, and he pulls Lloyd back into the hug, pressing a kiss to his hair. “It wasn't that, Lloyd. Your father… he seems to be a troubled fellow. I'm sure his decision had nothing to do with you.”

“Was I not good enough? I - I would have tried to help him. I would have tried to help him, dad.”

Dirk shushes Lloyd, resting his chin on his son’s shoulder. “There is nothing you could have done, son. It was not a matter of you being good enough, Lloyd. Kratos is a grown man who can make his own decisions… If he really wanted help, he would have known where to find it.”  
  
Lloyd’s quiet for a few beats of silence, just hugging Dirk back, sniffling into Dirk’s vest, finally truly coming down from his (justified) breakdown. “I probably sound so ungrateful, huh? I… I have you, and here I am crying about -”

“You’re being silly,” Dirk interrupts, not at all unkindly. His voice is as soft as the natural roughness of it will let him be, fond and fatherly. He adjusts his hold on Lloyd, gently pushes him away with two hands on his shoulders, and looks him in the eyes. “I know you mean well, son. And this situation… You have every reason to be upset. Don’t worry about me, I just want to make sure _you’re_ okay.”

“But -”  
  
“Dwarven vow number two.”

“Dad -”

“Dwarven vow number two, Lloyd.”

Lloyd’s lips quirk upwards into a small smile. “Never abandon someone in need.”

Dirk stands, holds out a hand. Lloyd takes it, smile turning into a grin, and pushes himself to his feet with Dirk’s help.

“Dwarven vow number nine.”

“Fall down seven times, stand up eight.”

Dirk nods, a smile coming to his own face, as he reaches up to place a steadying hand on Lloyd’s shoulder. He’s raised this boy, once a troublemaking kid with no true sense of responsibility, now a heroic young man with a heart large enough to ache for the people he couldn’t save from themselves. And looking at him now, Dirk has to blink away his own tears of pride, of gratitude. Because while he never thought he wanted to be a father, Lloyd’s brought him a sense of joy he had never known, a deep, resounding need to be a stable presence in the life of a kid he picked up through tragedy. And he doesn’t regret a damn thing about it.

“I’m so proud of you, Lloyd. I’m grateful for the fact that I get to call you my son.”

Lloyd’s eyes water again, and they both laugh as Lloyd throws himself at Dirk again, right into another hug. Even though Dirk’s knees are going to kill him for spending as much time on the floor as he is right now, he can’t say it won’t be worth it. Every moment as Lloyd’s father is worth it.

**Author's Note:**

> kratos aurion be a good dad challenge failed
> 
> okay! so here's a tos fic that Isn't zelloyd for once, F, but. it was a ton of fun writing this and i died because i adore lloyd irving and even though i enjoy making him suffer it is a double-edged sword. thank you to aer, rar, and ruri for reading this and dying w me
> 
> dirk was also surprisingly fun and easy to write for! he's a good man. he loves his son and his son loves him!
> 
> so! inspirations! some of the dialogue (especially the "why doesn't he want me") was plucked from a scene in, of all things, the Fresh Prince of Bel-Air in which will has to deal w his deadbeat dad leaving him again and again. even with the context being Entirely different, the dialogue was Raw and killed me dead, so here it is if you're interested in hearing it for yourself:  
> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gMNsMdnSBIk
> 
> the title comes from "you'll be in my heart" by phil collins (from tarzan!) which is a super soft family song, and i listened to a ton of aloha 'oe while writing this because its very touching and similarly fuckoring for me
> 
> that'sssssss it i think! as always any comments/kudos are super appreciated, and if you wanna see me shitpost and ramble about tos, feel free to follow me on twitter @thesealedvessel!


End file.
